


Always and Forever

by 21K1LLJ0YS



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Please get help if you need it, Reader Self-Harms, Reader is Suicidal, Romance, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, You're all beautiful, jealous Oswald, loving relationship, protective Oswald
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-15 01:32:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13020444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/21K1LLJ0YS/pseuds/21K1LLJ0YS
Summary: You have dealt with depression for years, and Oswald doesn't know it. What will he do when he finds out?





	Always and Forever

**Author's Note:**

> If you are triggered by mentions of self-harm, please do not read this. I don't want anyone to hurt themselves, ok?

I can’t take it anymore.  
He isn’t here for me.  
All I need, all I ever needed was for someone to hold me.  
I thought I had found that in him, but I guess I was wrong.

I have struggled with depression ever since I was first going through puberty. I wasn’t exactly a beauty pageant child, but adolescence was the most hellish experience of my life. I had horrible acne, an awkward body, and braces to top off the look.  
Ridiculed and verbally stomped on constantly at school, I found comfort in my music and art at first.

Until it wasn’t enough.

I looked to darker activities in an attempt to cope with my plummeting self-esteem. I started off by bruising myself at first. I was too scared to cut, so I would pummel my legs with my fists, or other blunt objects. I convinced my parents that I was clumsy and bruised easily so they wouldn’t worry. 

When bruising became insufficient, I tried out cutting, and so, I fell into a deeper and darker level of depression. I would hear voices whispering to me throughout the day my self-loathing. I couldn’t cut my arms and legs because I didn’t want to take the chance of anyone noticing, so I cut my stomach and hips. 

Cutting was my escape. When I cut, the voices became silent. It was strangely peaceful.

Then, I met Oswald. 

Soon, I didn’t feel the need to cut anymore. Being with him silenced the voices. He treated me like I was his treasure, and soon, I started to think a little better of myself.

But, it wasn’t to last. I knew it couldn’t last.

At first, when I had doubts (and I always did), whether they were about my intelligence or my appearance, Os would always lay them to rest. 

“No, you’re beautiful. Please stop doubting yourself, Sweetheart.”  
“I love you so much, you’re everything to me.”

Once, when Oswald and I were in his club, a guest, who had consumed a bit too much alcohol, collided into me. When he regained his balance, and got a good long look at me, he guffawed at me and said loudly for everyone to hear,

“I was thinkin’ of doin’ you, but now that you’re up close, I’m gonna need a few more drinks.”

Now, I don’t typically care about a drunk’s opinion, but the moment the words slurred out of the man’s mouth, the voices came back screaming in my head, and tears filled my eyes. The whole club had gone silent after the drunk’s outburst. They knew who I was there with. 

Oswald, who has acted as my protector for the duration of our relationship heard the whole thing. He saw the tears in my eyes, and needless to say, he was not thrilled.

Through the haze of my tears, I saw the look of rage on Oswald’s face, as he dragged the drunk, who was still giggling at his joke, by the back of the neck, through the rear door of the popular club, and into the narrow street beyond. The deathly silence in the room was broken by the sharp crack of a gunshot, which caused every guest to flinch as one. After a moment, though, the night resumed as normal for them. No one seemed particularly surprised by the commotion. After all, the owner of this club WAS the King of Gotham, and the man HAD insulted the King’s lady. 

By the time he came back inside, Oswald only saw a blank expression on my tear-stained face. This was the face of someone fighting a bloody, vicious internal battle, but who didn’t want anyone to notice or worry. 

The face didn’t seem to work on Oswald. He had never seen me like this, and for the rest of the night, he peppered me with questions.

“Are you sure you’re alright, (Y/F/N)?”  
“He ran into you pretty hard, does anything hurt?”  
“Can I get you anything?”

I did my best to reassure him, but he could probably tell that his constant barrage of concern was making me feel worse. The night wore on, and slowly, his stream of questions faded to a trickle, until stopping altogether. As he drove me home, the car was silent, but I still caught Oswald looking worriedly at me often.

Eventually, I got past that incident, and the bubbly personality that Oswald brought out in me came back. Things were good again. Time with the man I love silenced the voices. 

But too soon, things started going dark again.

Os was forced into more and more business-filled days, which turned into business-filled weeks, and soon, I barely saw him at all. It wasn’t his fault, and he tried hard to make time for me, but the lapse in companionship with him was slowly killing me.

I started cutting again, worse than ever before. Where I was once making small cuts in the skin of my abdomen and hips, I was now making deep, bloody gashes. I even was forced to go to the emergency room once when the bleeding wouldn’t stop. Thankfully, Oswald hadn’t been home at the time, so he never found out. I felt like I was drowning. A weight like a boulder was on my chest all the time. And the less time I spent with Oswald Cobblepot, the worse it got.

Finally I ran out of room to cut my abdomen and hips, so I started on my arms. 

One day, I was sitting on the bathroom floor of my apartment, a razor blade in my trembling hand. 

I was staring intently at the prominent veins on my inner wrists. 

I nervously played with the blade in my hand as I stared. 

I hadn’t ever thought about it before, but it would be so easy.

So easy to just slice that translucent skin to the azure veins below.

The voices were screaming at me to just do it. 

Oswald wouldn’t miss me. No one would.

I held the razor trembling over the thin barrier between life and death and then stopped.

I heard something.

The front door to my apartment had just opened and closed.

“Darling? Are you here?” Oswald asked, voice muffled by the walls.

I shouldn't have given him a key.

Hastily, I scrambled to hide the razor, but nicked the skin of my arm in the process. I heard Oswald’s limping footsteps getting close, and I threw the razor under the sink before turning the water on and attempting to rinse the blood off of my arms and hands.

“Sweetheart, I thought we could have dinner tonight to try to make up for my absence.”

“Sounds great!” I responded, trying to sound cheerful despite my nerves as I pressed a towel to the nick to my arm that I had accidentally inflicted. It was deeper than I originally thought, and wouldn’t stop bleeding without pressure. 

“Can I come in?” Oswald asked innocently, now at the door, “I miss hugging you.”

“Just a second!” I yelled a little too frantically.

There was a pause.

“Sweetheart, let me in.” He ordered sternly. My tone must have worried him.

“Wait!” I shouted, but it was too late. Os opened the bathroom door, and took in the salt trails on my cheeks and the faint residue of water on my arms. His eyes narrowed suspiciously, and the bouquet of roses he was carrying in his hand was set on the counter.

“What were you doing?” He asked, one eyebrow raised.

“Nothing,” I muttered, unable to meet his piercing gaze, apparently becoming very interested in looking at the flowers.

Suddenly, I felt the unmistakable sensation of liquid running down my arm, and instinctually, I looked down. 

Sure enough a thin trail of blood was meandering down my forearm. 

Oswald’s gaze snapped to the crimson stream. His cerulean eyes widened, and he snatched my arm in a vicious grip to get a better look at the relatively small laceration. Gradually, his eyes crawled further up my arm and encountered the deep red lines of the partially healed cuts from the past few days. 

What little color was in his skin melted into pallor as the realization of what I had done dawned on him.

“What?” Oswald breathed, “Why?”

I couldn’t meet his eyes. What was I supposed to say?

My silence lasted too long.

“WHY?!” Oswald screamed, gripping my shoulders in iron fingers and shaking me. Tears started flowing from my eyes and I began shaking by myself as sobs started wracking my frame.

Oswald always hated seeing me cry. He released my shoulders and swept me into an embrace. He slowly rocked me back and forth, whispering softly into my ear.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. This is my fault. I haven’t been here for you.”

I wanted to reassure him that this wasn’t his fault, that I was the one to wield the razor, but I just cried salt into his suit jacket. He didn’t seem to care, which was good because I couldn’t stop. It had been so long since I had cried on someone’s shoulder.

Oswald pulled me away and forced me to meet his anguish filled eyes. He didn’t seem to know how to act around me. He wanted to be angry, but he also wanted to comfort me. 

“Why didn’t you tell me? He asked, voice cracking.

“I’ve been doing this for a long time. I… I have it under control,” I sputtered between sobs.

“You consider dragging a blade across your skin “having it under control?”" He spat out.

A fresh wave of sobs coursed through me. He was right. This was slowly killing me.

“Here’s what you are going to do,” Oswald spoke with a tone that he had never used with me. “You are going to give me whatever blade you used to make those awful marks, along with every knife in your collection.”

He stared me down, and I felt a trickle of fear crawl up my spine as I stared back.

“But-“ I began

“Don’t argue with me!” He shouted, causing more tears to pour down my face. This time, though, he didn’t soften his expression at the sight. The look on his face was frightening me, and Oswald didn’t realize that his reaction to my cutting, although it was not unexpected, was actually throwing me head-long into deeper self-hatred.

My shoulders slumped and head bowed. I reached under the sink for the razor blade, not caring when my forefinger was lightly cut in the process. I handed the bade over, and as Oswald, the infamous Penguin, took it, he grasped my injured hand in his, and gently placed a kiss on the nicked skin. He reached under the sink himself, pocketing the razor in the process, and withdrew some bandages and antibiotic ointment.

Taking my forearm, Oswald proceeded to clean and dress the wounds that he could find. I still hadn’t spoken since his last outburst, but I knew that he regretted shouting at me. 

While he dressed my wounds in silence, I stared at the gorgeous red roses that he had brought for me, and thought how much more beautiful the crimson petals were than all the blood I had drawn over the years. 

“Do you have any more?” Oswald asked, looking down at me and gesturing to the now cleaned and bandaged cuts on my arm.  
I swallowed nervously, dreading his reaction, and lifted the hem of my shirt, exposing the criss-crossing pink and red scars on my stomach. 

Oswald closed his eyes, momentarily blocking out the sight of my mutilated skin, and took a deep, shuddering breath, while I held my own. Finally, eyes opening, he spoke, haltingly.

“The chief of medicine at… At Gotham General owes me a favor. I- I’m going to call it in and get you the best doctors, therapists, whatever you need. I’m… I..” 

His eyes closed again and he looked like he was going to be sick. 

All I could feel was shame. The man I love finally knew my deepest, most awful secret, and I didn’t know how to comfort him. So, I did what he and I always do when we go through a hard time. 

Last year, after Oswald and I had been dating for about 5 months, I lost the job that I adored. I was devastated and thought my life was over. Os couldn’t bear to see me so distraught, but nothing he did seemed to comfort me. So, he limped over to where I was pacing, took my hands in his, looked deep into my eyes, and said,

“I love you. Always and forever. And there is nothing we can’t get through together.” 

I remember giggling a little at the rhyme, and, relieved that I wasn’t crying anymore, he smiled and insisted that it had been unintentional. 

So, the little rhyme became our saying that we comforted each other with in times of trouble, and every time, we meant every word.

I took Oswald’s hands in mine. They were trembling, but warm and reassuring. I looked deep into his tear-filled blue eyes, and I said, with my voice breaking, 

“I love you. Always and forever. And there is nothing we can’t get through together.”

He blinked, a tear falling from the inner corner of his eye, and meandering down his pale face, past the nose I loved so much, and over the lips that were now smiling at me. 

Oswald pulled me into an embrace. 

“Yes,” He murmured into my hair, “Yes, ok.”

I smiled broadly through my tears, feeling safer and more loved than ever before. I knew then that it was going to be alright, maybe not now or even soon, but eventually. 

“I love you, Oswald Cobblepot,” I whispered. 

“I love you too, (Y/F/N) (Y/L/N). Always and forever.”

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, so I wrote this work when I was in a VERY dark place, but I am getting the help I need now. I want anyone who reads this who has struggled or is struggling with depression to know that there is always hope. Always keep fighting. <3


End file.
